


His Strength

by wisdomofme



Series: FT Angst Week 2015 [3]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, FTAngstWeek, FTAngstWeek2015, Moderate depictions of violence and gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomofme/pseuds/wisdomofme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt 2 of FT Angst Week: Demons/ Monsters<br/>“You see, Lucy dear, Natsu and I are one and the same. You think we’re separate, but we’re not,” E.N.D’s eyes glinted with a murderous light. “Not really.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Strength

He was back here again.

It was the smell that alerted him to it, like it always did. The scent of charred wood surrounded him and would've been overwhelming if it weren't for the stink of blood and decay coming from next to him. He moaned in despair as he felt hard bark dig into his knees and shins and the ache in his shoulders as his wrists were bound with metal cuffs behind him. He knew what sight would be before him when he opened his eyes, and he didn't want to see it, not now, not ever.

"No," his voice was a low broken whine. "Not again, not tonight."

But he knew all the begging in the world could never prevent this as a clawed hand grabbed his pink locks and yanked his head upright.

"Wake up Natsu," a too familiar voice crooned in his ear. "Wake up, I have a gift for you..."

Natsu rocked forwards as the his captor let go of him, letting him fall to the ground and groan as the impact reopened wounds that hadn't had enough time to heal. After a moment he tried to push himself back up onto his knees but, with his hands bound behind his back, he gave up after only a few attempts. He could hear something being dragged along the forest floor, closer and closer until there was a thump as it was dumped beside him.

Not again.  _Please_. He didn't want to watch  _again_.

"C'mon now Natsu, I would hate for you to miss this. Or perhaps you want me to begin first..."

He didn't want to but it was a terrible torture he couldn't turn his eyes from.

Natsu's eyes cracked opened, wincing for a moment as even the moon overhead shone too brightly, and his dry tongue darted over his torn lips. Finally, his eyes landed on who the monster had brought him this time.

"No, not her. Don't hurt her," the groan slipped through his lips as he struggled to his knees again. He couldn't do this, he would not let that monster tear at her like the others.

Lucy laid in the dirty beside him, gagged and bound and covered in bruises and wounds slowly oozing with blood. She looked beaten but her eyes screamed that she was anything but defeated. They shone with defiance and he could feel her willing him to fight, trying to give him the strength to go on through simple eye contact.

Eye contact he could not keep as he pressed his face back into the ground.

He had always thought of her like her beloved stars, always shining even in the darkest of times, and even now she continued to dazzle him. 

What a pity he was already broken.

Natsu scrunched his eyes closed again as his tormentor stepped towards him, ignoring Lucy's muffled cries of anger.

"Now, now Natsu," he mocked. "That's no way to treat a lady."

The beast's claws dug into Natsu's cheeks as he was forced to make eye contact with the demon. With himself.

"Yes, see that Lucy dear?" E.N.D purred. "You're looking for a hero, but you won't find one here."

E.N.D flung Natsu back into the dirt, disgust written across his face, and Natsu could feel Lucy's gaze boring into the back of his head.

"Did he tell you about his  _feelings_ before he left?" E.N.D mocked as he crouched beside Lucy. "Did he tell you about how he  _cared_  for you? About how he wanted to _protect_  you?"

Anger boiled in Natsu's chest as he watched the demon run a nail down the side of Lucy's cheek. The grimy nail drew blood but Lucy didn't even flinch, instead she just stared down the monster that could kill her without a second thought.

“Did he tell you about _me_?”

Lucy’s shoulders jolted and a tiny glimmer of hurt was reflected in her eyes for barely a moment before she stuffed it back down. And Natsu knew why. Because he hadn’t told her. He hadn’t told anyone.

And now here they were.

“Leave her alone,” Natsu growled as he finally pulled himself back up to his knees.

“Oooh,” E.N.D’s twisted grin stretched across his face. “Getting all protective of your girl”-

“Lucy’s not mine,” Natsu panted angrily, the small physical effort taking a toll on his body. “Lucy belongs to herself.”

Out of the corner of his eye Natsu caught Lucy looking up at him, a spark of hope shining in her eyes. It filled Natsu with pride but E.N.D caught the look and a scowl overtook his features.

“You’re wrong,” he snarled and grabbed Lucy by her hair, pulling her roughly to her feet.

Nastu tried to follow them at Lucy’s muffled cry of pain but E.N.D just kicked him in the chest, sending him back to the ground.

“She’s mine now, and I can do whatever I want to her,” E.N.D’s eyes turned a solid black as he dragged Lucy closer to Natsu. “I can do to her what I did to your other friends,” E.N.D’s eyes trailed off to the left of Natsu, but he refused to follow his gaze.

He knew what he would see if he looked and he did not want to.

“But she is _special_ isn’t she?” E.N.D pulled Lucy closer to himself and leered at her snarling face, and then the rest of her. “I know what you think of her, you can’t lie to me.”

Natsu’s vision blurred red as the demon rested his free hand on Lucy’s waist. She did not flail her limbs or struggle like many others would’ve done in the face of evil. Instead, as his sharp claws sliced through her gag, she held her head high and spat in the face that had once solely belonged to her best friend.

E.N.D roared and, before Natsu even had a chance to cry out a warning, struck Lucy across the face, sending her to the ground with the force.

“Lucy!”

“You bitch!” he snarled and, for a moment, Lucy did not move.

She laid still, splayed out on the ground in front of Natsu, until she raised her head and licked her dry lips. From above E.N.D wiped the spit from his face and growled in irritation.

“You’ve made this a lot easier for me _girl_ ,” he sneered. “I don’t know why you continue to fight. He’s of no help to you anyway.”

Without moving a muscle, or revealing to the demon that she had heard him, Lucy looked Natsu in the eye and saw exactly what he had been talking about. There was no light, no fire in his eyes, and he could barely hold her gaze for more than a moment.

“He’s already killed your comrades,” E.N.D said as he nodded to the left of Natsu a second time.

Lucy’s eyes widened in alarm and she turned to look at the space her eyes had been avoiding the entire time. Natsu knew what she would find. And he knew exactly how she would react.

Just like he had known how everyone else would react.

“You see, Lucy dear, Natsu and I are one and the same. You think we’re separate, but we’re not,” E.N.D’s eyes glinted with a murderous light. “Not really.”

Lucy didn’t even react, she didn’t- couldn’t tear her eyes from the sight.

The sight of her comrades’ corpses.

Erza, Gray, Mira, Juvia- they were all there, piled up and covered in dry blood. Elfman, Laxus, Levy, even Wendy and Happy, who laid the closest to Natsu’s side. Every single member of Fairy Tail.

Every member but her.

Natsu had memorised their exact positioning, their still expressions and the colour in their vacant eyes. It was his burden to carry, his punishment for putting them there. And the moment Lucy opened her mouth, she would join them, the last one to join their number.

Their words had doomed them all like her words would doom her.

Erza had accused him of being a monster; Gray had looked him in the eye and told him he deserved to die. Even Happy and Wendy had cried and called him a killer.

Natsu pressed his face into the dirt and moaned.

“Not her, _please_ , let her go.”

“You know how this works,” E.N.D replied as he watched Lucy struggle to her feet and stumble to her friends. “They must be judged.”

Lucy knelt by Wendy’s side and bushed a lock of her hair back from her frozen face with her bound hands. As tears welled in her eyes she turned to Happy and scratched him behind his left ear, like she used to do when he curled up in her lap. Her gaze wandered from Gray’s bloodied back to the empty shoulder where Erza’s right arm used to be to the mauling on Elfman’s chest. And after a heavy moment she pushed herself to her feet.

The time had come and Natsu knew that after this, he would never recover.

Lucy stood between Natsu and a grinning E.N.D, her watery eyes gazing above Natsu’s head. She licked her lips a final time and took one last breath before she spoke.

“He’s not you.”

Natsu’s gaze met hers and through her watery eyes and trembling lips he could see her smile. The one she used to give him on missions, when he crashed at her place, when she saw him at the guild hall each morning.

The smile that cried out, _‘I care about you.’_

“Don’t let him make you think that you’re the same,” she said and then, mustering up every ounce of strength she had left, she gave him his smile. “Because I’ll never give up on you.”

The moment the last word left her lips she lurched forward, her eyes widening in pain, as a clawed hand was thrust through her chest.

_“LUCY!”_

“Goddamnit, I hate it when she does that,” E.N.D muttered as Lucy’s body vanished in a shower of light. “I thought I almost had you this time, she was fucking crying and everything.”

The cuffs that bound Natsu’s hands abruptly vanished and then-

He was floating in nothing.

He looked around in confusion but when his eyes landed on E.N.D, floating across from him, his heart filled with rage.

_“HOW DARE YOU”-_

“Please control yourself,” the demon snapped irritably. “Your emotions are pointless.”

Natsu went to lunge for him but was unable to move in this darkness, in fact all he managed to do was give himself a headache.

“You are acting like a child, surely you have remembered by now.”

And he had. As the pain in his head spiked, he remembered.

Goddamnit, he was dreaming.

“We wouldn’t have to do this every night if you would just give me control,” E.N.D said. “Although, I won’t need your consent soon. I’ve almost won.”

And he had almost won. The dreams had been going for months now, picking through his guild mates and forcing him to kill them when his memories of them stopped believing in him. He’d dreamed of Happy for an entire month alone before his best friend had met his bloody end.

_Because I’ll never give up on you._

Lucy’s last words echoed in his mind and Natsu watched as E.N.D scowled.

“That stupid girl, you’ll give up on her soon enough,” he snapped. “You’re not strong enough to last much longer.”

“I’m not,” Natsu agreed and E.N.D narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Because I’m alone. We’re always stronger when we’re together.”

E.N.D scoffed at Natsu’s words as the darkness began to turn to a blinding white. “We’ll see dragon-boy.”

And with a shudder, he was awake.

“Natsu?” Happy asked as he hovered over him. “Are you up yet, I’m hungry!”

“Yeah, I’m up,” Natsu grumbled, the last memories of his dream fading in the morning sunlight. “What do we have for today?”

Happy dug his paws into his bag and held up the last of their food.

“We have fish, or fish!”

Nastu groaned and rolled over, not looking forward to more fish one bit, as a memory or a memory echoed in his head.

_Because I’ll never give up on you._

Where had he heard that before?

“Hmm, Happy?” Natsu asked as he sat up and scratched his head.

Happy hummed in reply, already munching on his breakfast, and Natsu took that as a sign to continue.

“What do you think of going back to Magnolia?”

“Going back to Fairy Tail?” Happy asked cautiously as he placed his fish carefully on the ground.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s almost been a year, hasn’t it?”

Happy cheered and tackled Natsu in a hug.

“Aye! I can’t wait to see everyone! Do you think Mira will still have fish? Maybe Carla missed me?” Happy buzzed around Natsu’s head excitedly. “Can we stop at Lucy’s place first?! I want to show her how much stronger I am!”

Natsu paused for a moment, a strange chill running through his body, before he brushed it off as excitement.

“Yeah, of course we’d go see Lucy first! She’s our partner!”

Happy’s cheers felt muted, as Natsu knocked a fist against his chest. He felt hollow.

_We’ll see dragon-boy._

He needed his strength.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh, Angst Week is so hard! I just want to write fluff to cheer myself up!!! Oh well, 3 down, 6 to go!


End file.
